DoubleDown V by John R. Little and Mark Allan Gunnells Page A

me.   Maybe that’s a fair trade.
    I’ve never told anybody, never written it down, never asked God or any other entity for either forgiveness or understanding.  How could I?  I haven’t forgiven myself yet, and I sure as hell don’t understand why I killed her.
    It just felt like something I wanted to do.  And when I did it, I enjoyed it.  I liked pulling the trigger and watching her life seep out of her.
    Even today I feel the same rush of joy I experienced that day.  I feel the pleasure, and I know how easy it would have been to kill others after her.
    But … even at seventeen, I knew I was lucky to have gotten away with it.  I didn’t live nearby, and my gun wasn’t registered or anything, so there wasn’t any obvious way to track me down.  If I left fingerprints, there was nothing to compare them to, since I’ve never been arrested or joined the military.
    Nobody saw me, nobody heard her screams, and if anybody did have any suspicions, they were always about the drunken fool who lived two doors down from Tammy.  I read the news stories and heard the gossip, and there was never anything I needed to worry about.
    But I always have worried.
    I worry that I might feel that urge again and need to follow it.  I’ve got two girls now, and they depend on me.  I can’t end up in jail.
    I know it’s wrong but I’m writing this for my own benefit.  I wish I could say I’m sorry, but when I face myself in the mirror, would I really believe my own lies?
     
    “Holy shit,” said Bonnie.  She’d read only the first couple of pages and flipped through to see how many more there were.
    “The rest just talks about the same stuff.  You’ve read the important pages.”
    “I don’t know what to say.”
    Bonnie leaned over and hugged Karen. 
    “It’s okay,” Karen said.  “I don’t know what to say, either.”
    “Did your Dad seem crazy or anything?”
    Karen shook her head.  “Strict and a bit condescending, but pretty normal.”
    “You should tell your mom.”
    “I can’t.  She thinks he was a wonderful person.  What good would it do to tell her the truth?  I thought maybe one day she’d stumble across this stuff herself, but so far she hasn’t.  Or maybe she has and just doesn’t want to deal with it.”
    Karen put the box back in its secret place and took Bonnie’s hand. 
    “Let’s go for a walk.  Fresh air will help.”
    Bonnie smiled and gave Karen a quick kiss.  “Kay!”
     
    *   *   *
     
    The next day, time stopped for Karen.  It’d been a while, and it took her by surprise.
    She was an intern at the Mayberry Care Center, which mostly meant that she spent time reading books or talking to terminally ill patients.
    “My Lord, girl, you never know what pain is like until you’re being called home to God.”
    It was Mrs. Thompson talking to her.  The old woman was wheezy and took a long time to finish her thoughts.  She had liver cancer and was hooked to a morphine IV drip, which was the only thing that stopped her from screaming in pain.  Most of her white hair was gone, and wrinkles scratched across her face.  She looked like a child’s vision of the wicked witch in Hansel and Gretel.
    But she was kind.  She tried to smile for Karen and did her best not to show the pain that wracked her body.  She never had visitors, so when Karen came to see her, it was like the sun shining after a terrible hurricane.
    “I wish I could help you,” said Karen, holding the old woman’s hand.
    “I know that you—”
    Time stopped.
    Mrs. Thompson’s face froze, and Karen could see the pain in her eyes trying to squeeze out.  Silence dropped around her.  Karen hadn’t realized how much sound there was in the clinic ward until it stopped.
    “I’ll be back,” she said.
    She left and walked down Maple Street.  There weren’t any maple trees around, and she wondered if the street was named to make the Mayberry Care Center feel more welcoming.  It was a short street and